Near the start of the meeting I showed world tour photographs that Gordon Alexander had email to me. The URL to see these pictures copy this URL and paste it in your browser http://www.airpano.com/360Degree-VirtualTour.php?3D=Angel

Midge Lubot said that doctors at DHMC would like to switch to Macintosh computers, but may not be able to do so.

Midge Lubot and her kitty. Barry Hayes is in the background.

Midge said she received Windows files in a new format. What she said sounded like .docX.

Stephen Farber recommended the new free Open Office to open it. I checked using Google and found Apache OpenOffice which says: Apache OpenOffice is the leading open-source office software suite for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, databases and more. It is available in many languages and works on all common computers. It stores all your data in an international open standard format and can also read and write files from other common office software packages. It can be downloaded and used completely free of charge for any purpose.<http://www.openoffice.org>

I downloaded OpenOffice but may not install it because it appears to do the same thing as my iWork programs, and I do not need to learn another set of applications.

Another possibility to view documents when you don’t have their apps is Preview in Mountain Lion. Preview’s Help says: Even if you don’t have the app that created a document you can view and print it with Preview. You can view, print, search, and copy from the document just as you would any other document. However, you can’t edit or annotate it.

In the finder, double click the document. If you don’t have another app that can open it, Preview opens it. (It is worth a try, and while you are at it, look at Preview’s Help to see what other things it can do.)

Bruce Shields received an email from American Airlines. He did not know why they would send a message about something he did not do. He answered it and got a message from his ISP that a virus was detected. He thinks it was from Korea, and may have originated in China. We recommend that if you do not why someone would send you an email about the subject, you probably should not open it.

Bruce said that blue jays have an enormous crop so they can chomp food quickly and eat it at their leisure. He normally has a flock of birds at his feeder. One day there were none. Then he saw a Shrike in a tree. The next day the Shrike was gone, and the other birds were back. Larry Angell said he had a picture of a Shrike on his computer.

Larry Engell with his picture of a Shrike.

Larry asked, “When the app store sends you a notice of an update, and you do not want it, can you delete it so you do not get it again?” He did not get an answer.

Someone asked about WeatherBug for the Mac. (I used Google and found it at weather.weatherbug.com). Larry said he has AccuWeather which is available at AccuWeather.com You might want to try both of them.

Barry Hayes is very active in the St. Johnsbury Players. Barry showed St. Johnsbury Players announcement of Jesus Christ Super Star Facebook. It is opening on May 10, and on 11, 17, 18, and 19.

Barry said that years ago you could look up a person and find their name and address. He asked, “What happened to the free one.” Bruce said it is available but costs about a dollar. I looked for Barry Hayes on PeopleFinder.com and only his age was available for free. Then when I clicked to close without a search I got a message that for a limited time we can use People Search for 25 cents for a “current address, phone number, and up to 40 years of address history.”

Barry Hayes showing something to help another member, but what is on the screen is not in my notes.

Midge Lubot said patients call the office where she works and want appointments. If she is not sure of the name, she googles the telephone area code and number to find it.

Bruce said it sometimes works to open the Facebook page and go to Friend Finder for an option to send a message to the person. Someone also mentioned using LinkedIn to find the information.

Larry said his iPad would not find his HP Office Jet 6500 printer and wondered if he would have to buy a new printer. Neil Raphel said that Printopia, for just $19.95, will work. You install it on your Mac. Someone asked, “Does it work to print from the iPad when the computer is off?” I turned my Mac off, and my iPad printed just fine.

Someone said, “It is all going to the cloud. The big issue is connectivity.” Someone else added that the global issue is security. There was a threat to shut down a spam host in the Netherlands, and the response was a threat to shut down the whole internet.

People go to a store to examine an appliance, and then buy it through the Internet. If enough people do this the store will go out of business. Midge said she saw a book a Walmart, and bought it through the local St. Johnsbury book store at the same price. Neil said, “But they can’t compete with Amazon.”

Stephen Farber said when you are considering programs for editing photographs you should first look at what it is you want to do. You may find simple apps that do the one thing you need from the App Store, Apple looks at it, and the free stuff is good.

He also recommended that you look at Preview. If you look at Preview > Help you will find instructions for adjusting the color and exposure of an image, resizing it, and even extract an image from its background. (Take a moment to open Preview, look at Help, and see all the amazing things you didn’t expect Preview to be able to do.)

Stephen suggested looking at Fotor for a free photography editor. I found it at www.fotor.com and then was shown where to find it on the Mac App Store. It looks very interesting. You might take a look at it and see if it does what you want to do.

Stephen Farber and Mike Marks very interested in what is on Mark’s laptop.